Precious Blessing
by FlowerPot21
Summary: Warrick's going to be a daddy...its a blessing and a curse (prelude to Precious Little)WS


Precious Blessing

She mentally bereted herself because she should have known.

Sara looked at the cascade of water running quickly down her window outside as the rain continued to pound Las Vegas. It had been a long while since a rain like this had come into the city. She loved the rain. It gave her time to think and to begin more positive, fresh thoughts in her mind.

It was as if it were flushing out all of her emotions.

Now, she was weeping silently, letting her tears run slowly down her cheeks. She knew that this new revelation was redemption. It had to be, because she didn't want to be lonely anymore. She was sick of being lonely and afraid. She'd carried those feelings around in her heart way too long, and everyone else had had their turn to have something special in their lives. Now it was her turn, and she didn't care what people thought of her or what they would say.

She wasn't seeking approval anymore. She didn't need it nor did she want it. She was finally comfortable in her own skin and with herself for the first time in her life really.

Sara got up slowly, so as not to aggravate her nausea even more. She went into her kitchen and took out her personal calendar. She scanned through the dates and went back close to a month ago. She didn't know exactly when her cycle was due: she had been irregular since the age of nine. She was careful to mark when she started and when she stopped though and noticed that there were three weeks the month before she couldn't account for. She knew that she should have gotten one in that time span and she hadn't.

Sara closed her calendar and then went to her bathroom. She picked up the plastic stick and looked at it again then read the instructions. She had not misread nor did she not follow the instructions properly.

Sara was pregnant.

That explained a lot of things. It explained why she couldn't sleep, why she felt like she'd been carrying a dead weight around in her abdomen for many weeks, why she had been on an emotional roller coaster, and why she couldn't kick what she thought was the stomach flu.

While she was happy that she was pregnant, she was forlorn as well.

The father of her child had not been very receptive to her in a long while, and she was getting lonely and depressed again. That feeling of inadequacy crept into her mind, and she tried to shake it off. She had other things to think about; like going to see a doctor, making sure that she was healthy enough to go through her pregnancy, and taking all proper precautions.

Sara chuckled when she realized that the baby wasn't even born and it was keeping her busy already.

A rumble of thunder made her jump a bit and she dropped the pregnancy test.

She picked it up and set it on the counter next to her sink. She rubbed her stomach trying to get through the nausea, but she couldn't and she opened the toilet and vomited. Morning sickness. Well, evening sickness because it was nine o'clock at night.

She flushed the toilet and got up slowly. She'd been throwing up for two weeks and she figured she should have figured it out because after she threw up, she would get hungry and eat without trouble.

She washed her mouth out and then turned on the water for a shower. She brushed her teeth, an action that caused her stomach to turn a little at the taste of toothpaste, but she finished without getting sick again. She put her toothbrush in its holder then looked at herself in the mirror. She was pale, but in good spirits. She was having a baby.

Sara looked at her profile. Her abdomen was still flat, so she guessed she was around five weeks along. Surprisingly, she wasn't afraid of gaining weight. She needed to anyway because she was at her skinniest and it didn't look healthy. She felt happy and giddy and she grinned into the mirror.

She heard him come in through the door of her apartment, and she gathered up her courage. She heard him making his way to her bathroom. She sat down on the toilet and left the pregnancy test where it was so that it was the first thing he saw. He came to the doorway and stopped as soon as he saw the test. She could see the shock in his face and she began to weep again.

"Is that what I think it is?" He asked, still in shock.

She nodded.

"I'm pregnant," she said quietly.

He looked at her.

"Don't look at me like that," she said in the midst of crying. "But I guess it serves you right to be shocked. You haven't even been around me for two seconds to even notice that I haven't been myself."

Warrick came over to her and kneeled in front of her.

"Why have you been pushing me away?" She asked tearfully.

Warrick sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"Sara, I didn't do it on purpose," was all he could manage at the moment.

She got up and began gathering the pregnancy test, the box, and its contents.

"Do you know how much you hurt me?" She asked while stuffing the test and the little papers angrily into the box. "You made me feel like I was nothing! I'm tired of admitting my feelings to people and then letting them run away with them. I've done that with Grissom and I'm tired, Warrick. I'm not wasting another minute of my life waiting for someone to tell me what they're really feeling."

Warrick came over to her and cupped her face in his hands.

"Sara, believe me," he started. "I do want to be with you. It's just that I never thought about you, not even looked at you in an intimate way before because we're friends. I don't want to mess that up for us."

Sara's anger faded, and she wrapped his arms around his waist letting the box fall to the floor.

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" She asked, now sobbing. "I've been going out of my mind for weeks thinking that maybe you'd found someone else or that what we had was just some unresolved tension or something," she rambled. "I felt so lonely and I was about to give up."

He brushed a strand of hair from her face and held her.

"Look," Sara started calmly. "I know that this is a lot to handle and I don't blame you if you're upset."

"I'm not upset," Warrick said. "It takes two you know."

Sara grinned.

"I know," she sighed. "I'm scared, but I'm happy at the same time. I hope that you can be happy about the baby too."

Warrick took her hands in his and squeezed them in reassurance

"We need to figure out when to tell the rest of the team," she whispered.

"Whenever you're ready, we'll tell them," he said.

Sara looked into his eyes and pulled him into a hug.

"I love you," she whispered almost inaudibly.

Warrick hugged her tighter then kissed her neck before pulling away. She looked hurt when he didn't tell her the three words that she'd been wanting to hear for a long time from him.

"Warrick, look at me," she said firmly and in tears. "I love you."

All he could do was kiss her deeply. He couldn't admit that he loved her. At least, not now. The baby was already enough emotion for one night, and he was dealing with a whole other one when it came to love. Sara was one of his closest friends and now he had taken that up to the next level unintentionally.

Sara pulled away from him.

"You can't stay here," she said through a bout of crying. "I need some time to myself. Just go."

"Sara, I'm not leaving you by yourself, not like this," Warrick insisted.

"Not like what?" She asked angrily. "Hurt, disappointed, scared, happy? God Warrick what is wrong with you?"

She pushed past him and headed to her bedroom and slammed the door.

Warrick flipped the pregnancy test over in his fingers. He stared at the two bright pink lines in the window. It wasn't some strange dream. Sara was pregnant with his child, and he didn't know if he should be happy or guilty.

Never, in his history of relationships, had Warrick ever gotten a woman pregnant. He was always careful and considerate of the women that he was with because he knew that they put their trust in him to think with his heart and mind for their sake.

For some reason, the story was different this time around, and now that a baby was on the way, he had to take this relationship seriously, not that it wasn't in the first place, but he had a future to consider. In fact, he had two futures: Sara's and the baby's. He didn't know how far along she was, and he figured that he was pressed for time. Nine months wasn't a very long time. The baby would be in his arms before he knew it.

It was obvious that Sara wanted them to be together. Or maybe it was just hormones. He wasn't sure. She'd never talked about them actually being together and maybe getting married. Their relationship turned intimate after a particularly emotional case for Sara, and they'd been going out to eat and spending time at each other's houses since then. They'd always been careful, he was sure. There was something about one particular weekend that put Sara out of whack and made them forget about precautions.

Ever since then, he'd avoided her, because he knew that eventually, the consequence would manifest and he thought that he would be prepared for it, but he still wasn't when she told him. She had angrily kicked him out of her apartment and he took the test with him, just to remind him that he was going to be a father.

He didn't know what to do with himself, so he called Nick and told him the news. He came over and they were sitting at his kitchen table talking over beers.

"I knew that it was bound to happen," Warrick confessed. "It was only a matter of time."

"Do you think maybe she wanted to get pregnant?" Nick asked. "You know Sara hasn't been right since that case about two months ago. And maybe her clock is ticking."

"I don't think so," Warrick disagreed. "We used condoms, and she can't stand kids."

Nick nodded and took another sip of his beer.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Warrick said. "That's the problem. Now she's telling me that she loves me and she's never said that before until the night when she told me she was pregnant. I don't know if it's hormones, or a mood swing," he chuckled and shook his head and looked down at the table. "All the negatives aside, man, I'm going to be a daddy."

Nick chuckled and offered his hand for a handshake. Warrick shook his friend's hand appreciatively.

"I hope that everything works itself out between you and Sara," he said. "Sara's like a sister to me, and I care about her very much. Take care of her Warrick."

"I will," Warrick promised.

"Good luck man," Nick said as he got up.

"Thanks," Warrick said.

Warrick admitted to himself that he didn't love Sara.

Not in the way that she thought he should have. He loved her as a friend, not a lover. But he couldn't explain that to her, not while she was emotional and foul.

She left a rather scathing message on his answering machine about him not responding to her call about missing her first appointment. She said that she and the baby would do just fine without him and he didn't want that to happen.

He wanted to be in the baby's life, but he wasn't sure if he and Sara had a chance. The last time he'd fallen in love, his heart was broken badly, and he hadn't trusted a woman with issues of love since then.

Sara had been burned badly by love herself, and he thought mirthlessly, what better pair?

Now, there was a child involved, and he was actually quite happy about being a father. But now he had to leave some things behind, and resolve some things from his past. How could he possibly be a father if he never had one around. He prayed to God that he wouldn't follow in his father's footsteps.

He had to be there for both Sara and the baby, love or no love.

Warrick went over to her apartment and knocked on the door. He could hear her retching from within and he winced at the sound. After a few seconds, she opened the door, and she immediately scowled at him, getting ready to cry.

"What do you want?" She asked bitterly.

Knowing that he mostly likely wouldn't get a word in edgewise with her mood, he gently pulled her to him and kissed her like he never kissed her before. She quickly gave in and pulled him inside and closed the door. She whimpered and kissed him deeper.

He pulled away and hugged her.

"Sara, it doesn't have to be just you and the baby," he whispered. "I want to be in the baby's life and yours. I love you and I want to be with you both."

She cried happily and they kissed again.

Later, they were in her bed, and Sara was beaming. He held her close and rubbed her belly.

"How far along are you?" He asked.

"Two months," she answered. "It's not going to be long before I start showing. I've had the weirdest cravings lately."

"Like what?" Warrick asked, genuinely curious because he needed to know what he needed to stock his refrigerator with.

"Hardboiled eggs with whipped cream, enchiladas, and summer sausage," she admitted.

Warrick grimaced into her shoulder before kissing it. Then, he asked her something unexpected.

"Do you want to move in with me?" He asked. "I know you're going to need a bigger place soon."

She turned to him.

"Do you have enough space?" She asked. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," Warrick said. "I've got plenty of room."

Sara smiled and she hugged him.

"Yes, I do," she said.

Warrick was willing to do anything to keep from hurting her again.

When Sara blanched and went to her bathroom, he was right there with her rubbing her back, silently vowing not leave her side for the sake of the blessing that he had been given; even if he wasn't in love with its mother.


End file.
